The proliferation of content servers on the World Wide Web has resulted in the availability of a seemingly infinite supply of information. With the click of a mouse button, a user can access just about any type of information—stocks, news, weather, traffic, and so forth—by accessing a content server that provides that type of information.
Some content providers enable a user to setup an account to access certain information that is of interest to the user. For example, a content server might enable a user to setup a stock portfolio where, for each of the stocks, the content server provides certain information, such as current stock price and news relating to the company.
Some of the information that the content server provides is merely informative. For example, such a content server might provide the user with information about the current price of a particular stock, the current weather in a particular area of interest to the user, the traffic situation within an area of interest to the user, or news about a particular company.
There are circumstances, however, when a piece of information is considered “critical” to the user. For example, the user might want to know immediately if a particular stock hits a particular price, or if there is a traffic jam on the route home. Typically, the user can request that, in such circumstances, the content server notify the user by providing a “critical information alert.” The content server can provide such an alert, for example, if a certain stock hits a certain price, if a storm is coming, if there is a traffic jam, or if a company announces something significant.
Such critical information alerts are typically provided via a fixed communication pathway between the content server and a device via which the user can receive the critical information alert. Typically, the user provides the server with communications pathway data that identifies one or more communication pathways via which the user wishes to be notified of any critical information. For example, the user might provide a pager number to which the content server can initiate a call and send a text message (that informs the user that a certain stock has hit a certain price, for example). Other examples of such communication pathways include telephone, email, and the like.
The content server typically stores such communication pathway data in a data store and associates respective communication pathway data with each such user. Typically, however, the communication pathway data is fixed—that is, the content server stores a fixed set of one or more pathways via which each user should be notified of any critical information. The content server then notifies the user via those specified pathways whenever a critical alert is transmitted—regardless of the type of information or the time at which the notification is being transmitted. Thus, such a system can provide a user with immediate access to critical information—as long as the user has access to the specified communication pathway. If, however, the user is not currently using the specified device, the user would not receive the critical information alert, and might not receive the critical information until it is too late to benefit from it.
It would be advantageous, therefore, to users of such content providing services, if systems and methods were available that identify a currently preferred communication pathway by which to provide such critical information. Such systems and methods could be based on a user profile associated with the user, and would be particularly advantageous if they were to provide such critical information based on the presence, availability, location, and preferences of the user.